Zprávy památkové péče 2019, 79(3):271-278 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2019.3.05

The armor of Alfonso II d'Este at the Konopiště State Castle in the context of armor scale production for the Ducal Court of Ferrara in the 16th century

Stanislav Hrbatý
Muzeum východních Čech v Hradci Králové

The article is devoted to one of the most important armories in Europe, known as the Este armory at Konopiště Castle, and primarily deals with the identification of hitherto anonymous armor that belonged to Alfonso II. d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.
The introductory part deals with the history of how the arsenal formed and the identification of possible personal items of the individual Dukes of Ferrara in relation to the preserved militaria in the Konopiště collection as they compare to the militaria and iconographic basis in private and public collections around the world. This passage also deals with an analysis of the surviving depictions of the Dukes d'Este in armor. A separate part focuses on the production provenance of individual armors and especially French style armors, which were typical for the Ferrara court.
The central part of the article deals with the confrontation of the preserved armor in the armory at the Konopiště Castle and the portrait of the Duke d'Este sold by the Dorotheum Auction House in Vienna in 2000. The preserved armor of Duke Alfonso II d'Este, stored in the Hofjag - und Ruestkammer collection in Vienna was used as a comparative material. Individual parts of preserved armor are analyzed and described in detail.
The article concludes with an evaluation of the results of this analysis, stating that the examined armor from Konopiště Castle is a very important document of armor scale craft of the 16th century combining Italian and French cultural environment; it also concludes that the preserved specimen at Konopiště and the depiction of armor on a portrait sold by the Dorotheum Auction House in Vienna in 2000 are identical.

Keywords: Renaissance armor, Italy, genus Este, Alfons II d'Este, Ferrara, Konopiště state castle armory, Dorotheum Auction House, portraits

Published: September 1, 2019  Show citation

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Hrbatý, S. (2019). The armor of Alfonso II d'Este at the Konopiště State Castle in the context of armor scale production for the Ducal Court of Ferrara in the 16th century. Zprávy památkové péče, 79(3), 271-278. doi: 10.56112/zpp.2019.3.05
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